


06. 14. '20. 02:03pm

by iirusu



Series: Where the Geese Fly and Bulls Cry [5]
Category: Original Work
Genre: No Dialogue, POV First Person, Set in Colorado, feeling upset
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:47:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24724777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iirusu/pseuds/iirusu
Summary: But you’re not listening. I’m thinking that you want to hide then, but then I looked into your eyes, and I could see. You didn’t believe in it either.
Series: Where the Geese Fly and Bulls Cry [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1785916
Kudos: 1





	06. 14. '20. 02:03pm

**Author's Note:**

> No triggers in this one, just some frustration about how I feel right now

I want to take a break from thinking about her, and you tell me that you do too, so we sit. My mind drifts for a little while and I’m wondering whether we’re still conversing or are going to take the rest of the day for ourselves, but when your brow furrows I know I’m staying. You start talking about dad, and how though you love him, there were times where he made you hide very far, because of how he made you feel. I take your hand and though I have my own share of poor experiences with him, I let you talk. I know you’ve been wanting to for some time. Dad was old school and was always among the older parents at conferences. He was raised on a ranch in the country and valued health, hard work, and family above everything. He taught you the importance of respect and family, and you followed what he’d said until middle school, where you’d started to realize that you both had very different ideas of what was important and what hard work was. 

You knew from the moment you’d picked up that busted mechanical pencil from the coffee table in kindergarten that you wanted to be an artist. You hadn’t a clue about specifics yet, but you knew you belonged in the art world. You spent your whole childhood drawing. You made beautiful portraits, shitty landscapes, cringey vent art, attempts at the anime style, and you made progress. By middle school, you were spending hours drawing every day- in the morning, throughout class, during lunch, when you got home from school, and all the way into the night. You’d wake up tired the next day from staying up and your hand would cramp up during the day from pushing yourself, but the sting felt good, because you were making progress. And you knew it was for something you’d be practicing for the rest of your life. 

Mom and Dad supported the dream, and actively encouraged it in your younger years, but come time for secondary education it had seemingly fallen out of fashion to them. That was fine. You’d made friends along the way that enjoyed seeing your work and observing how you grew as time went on. None of them ever made any particularly moving or exceptional commentary about what you did, and so you weren’t quite sure how to improve, but you still enjoyed the praise, even if it was depthless. You tried to work hard. But after a while, you’d felt like you hadn’t needed to do as much anymore because you were at the top. You knew there were people better than you in the world, but you also knew that in the bubble you lived in, there was no one competing with you to be the better artist. I stop you briefly to say that we’re still both like that. You tell me that you know and that you still don’t know how to fix it, not when you feel guilty practicing it. When you say this, I know what’s coming next. 

You feel nervous a lot. You feel like you aren’t spending enough time with the family, but when you try, the inclusion of _the dreaded sister_ is inevitable, and you so desperately want to avoid it. So you spend a lot of time in your room. You’re trying to work on several things. Yourself, and understanding your memories and feelings; your artwork, and improving its fundamental errors and stylistic hindrances; your writing, and its irritating lengthiness; and your comics, the stories you’ve decided to dedicate your future to. I say we’re also experiencing a global pandemic and revolution, but you jab my side and say that’s not the point right now. The point is your hours spent in the bedroom. You’re making your best efforts to work. 

But it’s not enough; it clashes. It clashes with what dad believes to be hard work, and the line between teasing and talking down has long since been blurred. You feel nervous a lot. You feel nervous because you know what he’ll say, every day when he comes home from work.

The house doesn’t look clean enough. The dishes aren’t put away- dinner isn’t made, what are you going to make for dinner? Come put the dishes away. Stop drawing all day- do you even do anything all day? What do you do? You only sit on your ass.

A lot of questions come barrelling in all at once and you only stand there with a tight smile on your face and ask how his day was while you open the dishwasher. You were in the middle of a call with someone, talking about the basement while you drew one of your dreams. You’re in the kitchen now, she has come out of her room, and her voice fills the house as she laughs along with dad. 

You set a glass down a little too hard and she tells you to calm down. You know it’s in a joking manner- you know, and it's disgusting. So you don’t say anything. When you’re done putting away the dishes, he’s sitting in his chair and is watching a TV show you knew you couldn’t care less for, but you still asked about it anyway. You ask for the name and what’s happening, forgetting it as soon as he tells you. But you still listen, and afterward, you start to tell him about how you designed new characters for your comic that day, and you’d felt like you were improving on your art. But he doesn’t respond. You don’t know if he actually heard you or not over the volume of the television, but you decide you’d be embarrassed if he had and you repeated yourself. That always made him irritated, and would usually be followed by an _I heard you the first time_ and then no further response. So you scurry back to your room, apologize to your friend on call, and make an excuse to leave the conversation. You close your computer, turn off your phone, and just sit at your desk for a while, feeling tears brimming in your eyes as time went on.

I was right next to you. I tried telling you that the work was important, that what we were doing was going to be great, that a few people not believing in it or respecting it didn’t matter. By now you were crying, and so I tried telling you that even though they’d said the ideas were terrible and boring, that they were still worth working on, because we could make it into something great. But you’re not listening. I’m thinking that you want to hide then, but then I looked into your eyes, and through the tears, I could see. 

You didn’t believe in it either.

You didn’t draw for a week after that. You just hid. I wished I could, too, because every day when dad came home I would feel the frustration and disappointment burning into my back. I felt like a failure. I was a conversation to be angry about, to be taken apart, and I hated it. I wanted, every second, to prove it to him, to prove that I could do it. But with every second spent in my room, staring at the closed computer in front of me, I felt guilty. I felt like I could be doing so much more, that my life was suddenly stuck in place, but I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I didn’t know if an idea was good. I didn’t know if a character design fit well or if the name sounded out of place. I didn’t know if a plot worked or if it was subtle or exciting. I didn’t know how to make the masterpiece I’d set out to make. And well, we’re still here. 

You’re out again and we’re writing, and I’ve been going outside more. But I haven’t touched art in a while. I think I’m afraid to. I’m so afraid that I put my heart into something that is failing. Maybe I was never supposed to be an artist, and I was destined to be a busker in Paris on cool nights, or a troubled poet living isolated and alone on a hill in Canada. 

You’re laying against my bed frame with a glass of chocolate milk and snicker at what I’d just thought, and you tell me I’ve gone off the rails. I shake my head because I loathe to think that I ramble as much as you do, so I decide I’ll close it off soon. I love my dad, but I can’t help but feel frustrated and bitter because I don’t think he fully believes in me. It's made me think that I don’t believe in this either. It might’ve all just been a pipedream from the start.

**Author's Note:**

> Next one will either be very light and peaceful or the darkest one yet, it's a gamble


End file.
